


Xiolusa, the Blind Serpent

by aspiring_failure



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-09 15:51:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19479112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aspiring_failure/pseuds/aspiring_failure
Summary: Vene is an old soul. She just wants to move on, and be with her family again.But the world has other plans for her, and she never expected she'd find a new family. She never expected she'd see her little sister one last time. She never thought she'd get a do-over. There were a lot of things Vene never thought would happen.She never thought she'd become a legend. Xiolusa, Medusa-slayer.She wouldn't have it any other way.





	Xiolusa, the Blind Serpent

They call me Xiolusa, the blind serpent of the lighthouse. The creature that faced Medusa and won. Who freed my people at the cost of my vision and my humanity. 

Scratch that. I was never human. My people aren’t the humans I freed. My people are the naga that Medusa commanded. The oppressed armies and battered families. The people that broke free of Medusa with me at the head of the revolution. The people that the humans now hunt for revenge on what Medusa did to them. 

They call me their savior but they can’t even get history right. I saved two peoples and some days I wish I hadn’t. They think I was a human, that I am now a serpent because the naga cursed me. They think I am blind because of Medusa. 

My serpent form is an ancient spell, one impossible to break. I was born with eyes the way they are now. 

Medusa was a better queen than the human kings who condemn my people because we, too, were ruled by her. Because we, too, were oppressed and torn apart. Because we, too, just want a home. Just want peace, and enough to eat. 

“The being who looks me in the eye shall take my throne,” Medusa had said. I looked her in the eye and told her to let my people go. When she fell to her knees, it was me who shoved a knife into her gut and twisted. It was me who took the crown from her head and placed it on my own head. 

Medusa was a human when she put on that crown. I was already part snake. So the crown took my form and made me a serpent. I didn’t protest, because my people were free and someone must wear this crown for my people to live without the curse. 

I took the crown because if I didn’t, my people would turn into snakes. And as a serpent, I would retain my intelligence.

I am not blind. I simply see the darkness, rather than the light. I see no color. 

Once upon a time, my name was Vene. Now, I am nothing more than a legend. 

I have worn this crown for seven centuries, and someday I will forget my own name. 

I miss being called Vene. The nicknames. My sister’s cheery challenges. 

Lelra, my sister, is dead now. Everyone I knew is dead. I’ve forgotten their voices, their faces, everything worth remembering. 

I remember feeling at home. At peace. I remember my mother’s hugs, and my father’s inherent warmth. I remember Lelra’s laugh, the way our home brightened when her laugh rang through the small room. I remember curling up with my family and falling asleep to their heartbeats and steady breaths. I remember the way home feels. 

But it’s all starting to slip away. 

I wish I didn’t remember, because I’m so afraid to forget. 

And I can’t join them. 

Not yet. 

My body is wrapped around the lighthouse, protecting the sacred grounds. Waves lap at my scales and fins. I sleep, dreaming of the home I left behind. 

A loud noise shatters my dreams, and I snap open my eyes. A bell is ringing, from a town built by the lighthouse. I adjust, straining my eyes to see more that blurry grayscale shapes, but my eyes have never let me see more that blurry grayscale shapes. I’m used to it. Figures run through the streets in the little town, and I feel a warmth in my chest for their carefree ways. Longing for something simple. 

Something prods at my back, and I twist around to see a tiny girl. Something about her features look off, but I don’t really know what. She pokes me again and I realize how big I’ve gotten. Seven centuries is a long time to live, and I’ve become a huge serpent. The little girl looks up, straight into my eyes, and calls up, “Hello, Xiolusa!” She scampers away nervously, and I know what was weird about her features. She was a naga, but not. 

She had a human nose, instead of the slits I remember my people having. 

I miss Lelra. 

But it’s time to move on. I need to let go of those memories I’ve been clinging to desperately and watch the world change around me. Watch the little snippets of family I see. 

It’s been seven centuries and I am nothing but an old soul waiting to move on. 

The little girl comes back every day, bringing warmth and stories and company and everything I’ve wanted for the last seven centuries. Her name is Lisale. Lelra used to come tell be stories, before the humans made my people flee. Now, it’s Lisale tells about how most people don’t like her because her father is a human and her mother is a naga. She talks about everything, and I don’t see how anyone could dislike this bright star. She’s going to be amazing someday. 

She’s already amazing. 

I watch a tiny girl grow into a beautiful woman and my heart drops, because someday she’ll leave. Someday she’ll be gone. Someday she’ll fall in love and have a family and forget me. 

I’m terrified for the day she doesn’t come back. 

She comes to me one day and tells me she broke up with her boyfriend. She’s crying, and it’s her eighteenth birthday. 

On her nineteenth birthday she brings her new boyfriend to see me. The two banter and flirt as they talk to me, and I smile at seeing her happy. I’m scared he’s going to break her heart, too. But I can’t say a thing, nor would I. She is happy, and that’s what matters. 

On her twenty first birthday she comes to me with her fiance, the same naga she brought with her at least once a week since her nineteenth birthday. She still hasn’t left, and that’s when I realize she’s become family. 

She has her wedding on the stretch of grass in front of the lighthouse. She says it’s because she wants me to be there, too. Lisale is married. 

After her wedding, she leaves. I was so scared that she was going to stop coming back but she says she’ll only be gone for a few weeks. I believe her. 

She’s back a few weeks later, telling me about her adventures in another city with her husband. Her visits start coming once every other day as she works and lives, and sometimes her husband comes with her. After a few years, she has a daughter, Willow, with her when she visits.

When Willow is thirteen years old, she visits alone for the first time. She tells me her mother is on a trip and will be back soon. “Don’t worry, Xio. She’ll be okay, and if she’s not, I still have you. And you have me. We won’t be alone.”

I’m terrified of the day that Lisale and Willow die. 

Three weeks later Lisale comes back, supporting an old woman. The oldest naga I’ve ever seen. She asks me, “Are you Vene?”

If I were in my naga form, I would have started sobbing. 

“This is Lelra. She’s your sister, remember?”

Lisale looks me in the eye and says, “She’s been looking for you for seven centuries. She wants to give you a better life.”

My sister is alive. She’s been looking for me. And she’s clinging to life so I can have a better life. 

My body shrinks down to my naga form, and Lelra plucks the crown from my head. It settles on her tendrils, and I collapse to the ground as she begins to shift into a serpent. “Bye, Vene. Come talk to me sometimes, ‘kay? I love you.”

Lelra was always so self-sacrificing. She was a hero. 

She’d say that I’m the hero, but I was just a girl who was angry and determined enough to kill a tyrant. She would have done the same if she wasn’t so kind. Lelra would have gone for a clean strike that would end Medusa’s life painlessly. But really, I don’t regret twisting that knife. 

“Love you too, Lelra,” I manage, smiling for the first time since I was just a little girl, oblivious to the horrors of the world. I can’t wait to move on. See my parents again. 

But I don’t want to leave Lelra behind. So I won’t. 

“Vene.” I turn to Lisale, wiping away a tear threatening to spill from my eye.

“Yeah?”

Lisale pulls me into a hug. “She said to give you this. So you could live another life without the horrors of your past.”

I take the charm without thinking twice. “When I forget, remind to tell Lelra about my day. Every day, like you did.”

I recognize this necklace. It’s the one I gave Lelra before I walked up to Medusa and took the crown. Before I twisted the knife in her gut. 

I wouldn’t choose anything else to wear forever. 

I clasp the enchanted jewel around my neck and the world goes white. 

Everything is  _ bright _ . 

I’m safe, I think. Someone has their arms around me, and I faintly hear crying in the background. 

“Mom, she’s opening her eyes,” a voice says, and the person lets me go. 

The woman who was hugging me steps back, smiling with watery eyes. “Hello, dear. I’m Lisale, and this is my daughter Willow. What do you remember?”

Willow waves nervously. 

“I- I don’t remember anything,” I admit. “Who am I?”

Lisale wraps an arm around her daughter. “You’re Xiolusa, our savior. See this lighthouse? It is guarded by your sister, Lelra. For the past seven hundred years, you have guarded the lighthouse. But Lelra sacrificed her life to give you a better life.

“What I’m saying is welcome home, Xiolusa. You’ve taken care of me since I was a child, and it’s my turn to take care of you.”

It’s been years since I woke up, and I wouldn’t change those memories for the world. I still don’t know why the people call me their savior, or who I used to be. I don’t remember being a seven hundred year old serpent, or leading a revolution. But in the same way, I do. I’ve lead a revolution to allow people like me to be who they are. Naga rights came before my time, but queer rights, I’m ready to fight for. I don’t know who I used to be and for that, I’m thankful. I like who I am. I like standing next to Willow and painting rainbows onto my cheeks with her. I like watching the conservative elders’ faces when we kiss. I love Willow and my friends with my whole heart. This family that I have, nothing in my past could make me give it up. 

I like going to the lighthouse everyday with Willow so we can tell Lelra about our day. I don’t know her, but I can feel how much she loves me, and how proud she is. Since waking up, my eyesight comes and goes. Some days it’s all black and white and others I can see more colors than I ever dreamed of. 

I don’t mind that some days, my girlfriend has to paint the rainbows on my face because I can’t tell the difference between the colors. I don’t mind being in a relationship where I’ll never have biological children. It’s just life for me, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. 

Every day, Willow and I go to the lighthouse. When we grow older, our children will go to the lighthouse. Some day, our grandchildren will. 

One day, maybe after another couple of centuries, Lelra will outlive even the crown’s curse. I’ll have Willow and Lisale and Lelra and my family, the ones I’ve forgotten. Someday. But I’m more than willing to wait. 


End file.
